This Grapefruit Sour Cream Cake is amazingly moist, bright with citrus and tart from the sour cream. A delicious cake best served with coffee or tea!

Seeing that it’s Friday and all I thought we should celebrate with cake.

A ruby red grapefruit cake to be exact.

Last Friday a big ol’ box of grapefruit was delivered to my front door {thanks to TexaSweet}. The box came a little damaged and dented {thanks delivery man!}, but when I opened it up and saw those beauts all was forgotten. After I made this cake I squeezed one grapefruit and strained it into a glass and drank it. SO darn good!

While pending the arrival of my grapefruits I devised a plan on how I was going to go about making the cake part. I borrowed the recipe from this post and the technique from this post, did a little ingredient swapsies and *poof!* this beautiful cake (that sort of tastes a bit like Froot Loops #notevengonnalie)… was born.

Zest the grapefruits until you have two tablespoons and then add it into the sugar bowl. Use your fingers and rub the sugar into the zest until the texture feels like wet sand.

Cut the grapefruit in half. I used a juicer and then strained the freshly squeezed grapefruit juice until I had 3 tablespoons worth.

Next, into the bowl with the grapefruit sugar, crack and add in two eggs, the grapefruit juice, add the melted butter and give it all a good whisk.

Then, in a smaller bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking powder. Give that a good whisk too, to break up and clumps and fluff it up a bit.

Next, in a small bowl or measuring cup stir together the half cup of sour cream and the two tablespoons of whole milk. This just makes adding to the batter more simple.

Alternately add a third of the dry ingredients, then a third of the sour cream mixture until it’s all incorporated. Pour the cake batter into a lined loaf pan. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 45 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Do NOT over bake!

Let the cake cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes before removing.

Then run a knife along the edge touching the pan and then use the parchment paper to lift it out on to a wire rack to finish cooling. Now go do a load of laundry.

For the glaze, whisk 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 (heaping) tablespoon of sour cream and then thinned it out with some whole milk. Uhhh yeah try NOT to drink this stuff. I dare you.

Annnnnd then I drizzled it all over the cake. Boo-yah!

Slice.

Serve.

And devour! It’s cakes like this that I wish I had the metabolism of a twelve-year-old because I’d eat this whole thing in a nano second. Like one second there’s a beautiful cake just sitting there and then *poof!* it’s gone and the only evidence is the crumbs on my chin. Awww yeah… to be twelve again.

Enjoy! And if you give this Grapefruit Sour Cream Cake recipe a try, let me know! Snap a photo and tag me on twitter or instagram!

My cookbook Simply Scratch : 120 Wholesome Homemade Recipes Made Easy is now available! CLICK HERE for details and THANK YOU in advance!

Yield: 12 servings

Ruby Red Grapefruit Sour Cream Cake

This Grapefruit Sour Cream Cake is amazingly moist, bright with citrus and tart from the sour cream. A delicious cake best served with coffee or tea!

Prep Time30 minutes

Cook Time45 minutes

Total Time1 hour15 minutes

Ingredients

1 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons zest from a ruby red grapefruit

2 large eggs

3 tablespoons freshly squeezed ruby red grapefruit juice, strained

1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1-1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup sour cream

2 tablespoons whole milk

FOR THE GLAZE:

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tablespoon sour cream

1 to 2 tablespoons whole milk

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350° and line an 8x5 loaf pan with parchment paper, then spray with cooking spray.

In a large bowl combine the sugar and the two tablespoons of grapefruit zest. Use your fingers and rub the zest into the sugar until it resembles wet sand.

Add the two eggs, grapefruit juice and melted butter. Stir until those ingredients are incorporated.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking powder. Give it a good whisk to remove and clumps.

In a small bowl or measuring cup; combine the sour cream and milk and stir until combined.

Starting with the flour and ending with sour cream/ milk mixture. Alternate and a third of each until everything is mixed in well.

Pour the cake batter into the prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Let the cake rest in the pan for 10 minutes before running a knife along the edge and using the parchment paper to lift the cake out of the pan.

Let the cake cool completely on a wire rack. Mean while make the glaze by combining the powdered sugar, sour cream and thinning it out with the milk.

Drizzle the glaze over the cooled cake and let it sit to harden for a few minutes.

Slice and serve!

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Note: TexaSweet in no way compensated me for this post. They simply sent me a shipment of their glorious ruby reds out of the kindness of their hearts and I blogged about using it this Grapefruit Sour Cream Cake… it’s as simple as that. My opinions are my own and I love these grapefruits!

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Buy the Cookbook: Simply Scratch : 120 Wholesome Homemade Recipes Made EasyNow available on Amazon »THANK YOU in advance for your support!

36 comments on “Grapefruit Sour Cream Cake”

You really come up with the most creative und beautiful looking desserts and meals. The next time I get my hand on some juicy grapefruit I’ll be making this! Why only have grapefruit for breakfast when you can have it in cake?!

Ohhh my goodness. This just happened. Like for reals. And it looks so beautiful and sounds even better! The grapefruit color is so gorgeous! I agree with Jennifer – it would be hard not to eat it all at once!!

laurie, this cake is positively gorgeous. i have been meaning to use my grapefruits in an actual recipe, but don’t ever do it! I would love a huge slice of this right now with my lemon tea. 🙂 And i still drool over your lemon blueberry cake load w/ buttermilk icing every time I see it. omg. 🙂

It’s perfect! By golly, it’s perfect! You’re quite the baker – the cake looks delicious and pretty and I love that you used grapefruit – I’ve never tried baking with grapefruit juice before and it’s magnificent!

i LOVE grapefruit. i just bought 2 big bags of grapefruit, too. recently on food network, i saw sunny anderson make this baked grapefruit dessert with sweetened grapefruit slices, vanilla ice-cream and meringue. but i think i may have to make this instead. very genius idea!

HI Cheeky,
Ya know, if it wasn’t for the graphic outlay of your step by step pics, I wouldn’t notice the essence of your creations! But your photos & vocab. are so inviting! thanks for another scrumptious recipe to add to the collection. I can’t go past this Grapefruit cake! My cellulite thigh sisters are indebted to you! LOL….

My mouth is watering just thinking about the red grapefruit in my kitchen — just arrived today fresh from the market. I love to peel one each morning for breakfast. That way you don’t miss a drop of juice or a morsel of pulp. Bet you can guess what I’m making in my kitchen tomorrow. The ruby red grapefruit sour cream cake! In fact, I’m going to be a good neighbor and make one for the family across the street. I’m thinking about reducing the sugar in the cake to maybe 1/2 to 3/4 cup. I really love dessert that’s not too sweet.

I have now made this twice in the past week. Once using Greek yogurt rather than sour cream and it is fabulous! The only thing I have noticed is it takes at least 30 minutes more than the recipe says to bake it, but I know each oven is different. It is definitely worth the wait.